It was around this time two years ago that I had begun wondering about a collaborative learning game that might involve role-playing and task completion. I suggested that the game shouldn’t preach, correct, or in any way disrespect the player’s intelligence, but rather amplify it through teaching the art of content analysis as a form of “participatory entertainment”. I was learning content analysis at the time with Open Intelligence, but lacked the tools that would accelerate the process. I was longing for something that didn’t exist and was wishing for a form of education that could provide the kind of collective intelligence I saw attainable when collaborative groups began practicing content analysis and synthesis together.

A report from 2009, from KnowledgeWorks called 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning caught my attention. It identifies six major drivers of change that might unleash a wild world of learning quite unlike any system of schooling we’ve ever experienced. What I’m finding is that it’s increasingly a story-driven game that places students at the center of their learning experience, much like an MMORPG. In any case, the singularity is one narrative I imagine will drastically alter what it means to be a student interfacing with a world undergoing ecological and economic shifts.

In the section called Altered Bodies we’re reminded that neuroscientists have begun to design neuro-enhancements that might soon provide “customized learning experiences” that push the boundaries of ethics and cognitive rights. Learners are forecast to have “more and more options for modifying their minds and bodies in support of peak performance even as they navigate increasing levels of bio-distress.” I’m reminded of what H.G. Wells would say is urgently needed to prevent our own extinction, “the evolution of a new more powerful type of man.”

Eric Bonabeau of Sloan Review writes that the human brain evolved to “avoid complexity (not embrace it) and to respond quickly to ensure survival (not explore numerous options).” Today’s world is said to require “short response times and more accurate responses and more exploration of potential opportunities.”

Information technologies are thought to provide “a more accurate and intimate understanding of our environment”. With the paradigm shift towards Web 2.0 and tapping into “the collective” comes a new era that Bonabeau labels “Decisions 2.0.”

Bonabeau points out a weakness called “pattern obsession“, when we see patterns where none exist which then influences how we frame our decisions. He calls it a “common trap” that leads us astray due to our basic human nature. Collective intelligence, he adds, “can help mitigate the effects of those biases” by providing a diversity of viewpoints and input, thus deterring “self-serving bias and belief perseverance.”

Bonabeau considers the challenge of designing the right mechanisms for collective decision making and if giving all users equal voice, is better or worse than giving certain individuals a greater say than the collective? If it’s the latter, he ponders, “how should those special individuals be selected?”

Jason Silva’s essay on “Intertwingularity“, begins with a quote from Ted Nelson about the term he coined to express the complexity of interrelations in human knowledge.

“EVERYTHING IS DEEPLY INTERTWINGLED. In an important sense there are no “subjects” at all; there is only all knowledge, since the cross-connections among the myriad topics of this world simply cannot be divided up neatly…”

Silva draws a connection between Nelson’s notion of “all knowledge” to Teilhard De Chardin’s “noosphere”. He’s reminded of a presentation from Chris Anderson, curator of The TED Conference, who refers to the power of imagination and he world of ideas as a kind of “life form” which has “made possible the human progress of the last 50,000 years.” Anderson is enthusiastic about imagination as key to every evolutionary step forward through countless dead ends. Anderson looks to our brains as ecosystems for “a new kind of life”.

Silva stresses the importance of our species with a quote from futurist Ray Kurzweil who said:

“…It turns out that we are central, after all. Our ability to create models–virtual realities–in our brains, combined with our modest-looking thumbs, has been sufficient to usher in another form of evolution: technology. That development enabled the persistence of the accelerating pace that started with biological evolution. It will continue until the entire universe is at our fingertips.”

Silva’s essay fuses quotes about technology as an extension of evolution, so that we might be encouraged to “step out of the familiar.” For what he sees possible is a humanity becoming immortal as we are “amplified by ourtechnologically-extended minds.“

Business sustainability and collective intelligence

Research in the natural and social sciences has shown this conception to be too narrow. Intelligence is a property of collectives. For the purposes of this paper, one takes a collective to be some entity distinguished as being non-atomic. Ant colonies, swarms, flocks or herds are examples among the non-human animals. Collectives of people may exhibit superior problem-solving capabilities than any of their most intelligent members. Even individual intelligence may be conceived as the intelligence of the collective of neurons that constitute one person’s brain.